Originally posted on September, 26th, 2010:Rüdiger Klose, drummer in a lot of interesting music projecst like 39 Clocks, Cocoon, Kastrierte Philosophen, Mythen in Tüten, Dakota, rk2, Treson, Die Unheilige Allianz died September, 26th at the age of 58. Rest in peace!
The 39 Clocks were "the best German band of the eighties" (German pop scholar Diedrich Diederichsen). The Hanoverian band cultivated a heavy accent and invented the Original Psycho Beat: futuristic, hypnotic 60s psychedelia with a beatbox deferred to the early 80s.
Originally released in 1981, "Pain It Dark" was the debut album from the band and owed no small debt to the Velvet Underground, Suicide, and Nuggets-era garage rock. The band’s spare arrangements, cold German-inflected English vocals, and comfort with discomfort still sounds great today.
It’s such a joy to discover something from the past that sounds so vital, so ripe for broader discovery and adoration. If the sometimes-harsh sonics and low vocal levels don’t offend, they’re not doing their job. For a band known in their time as tricksters and provocateurs, it’s simply their mode of operation. That’s not to say that songs like “Psycho Beat” and “Radical Student Mob in Satin Boots” aren’t “accessible”—it simply depends on your definition of the word.
Although VU is clearly the band’s touchstone, the band simply uses them as a jumping-off point. "Pain It Dark" sounds like American garage and proto-punk filtered through some shadow-filled masterpiece of German expressionism.
